This is more of an opinion post than anything else. As a vaper, you should by now be fully aware of the EU TPD and the implications for vaping as a whole.

In one of my earlier posts, I received a comment mentioning that Totally Wicked should not have put their business name on the campaign to challenge Article 20. I’ll admit I have been putting this post off, not because I don’t want to cover it, but because I wanted to give it some extended thought.

Now, it would appear that Totally Wicked do have a reputation with some within the community and not a pleasant one at that. Most of that stuff is way before my time in the community, so I cannot and will not comment on that either way.

To be clear, I have not purchased anything from TW. Not because I don’t like them, but because I haven’t seen anything I want to buy from them. Yet.

It does seem, that within the community at least, past actions are remembered for a very long time. The fact that TW are the only business that has taken on a legal challenge to Article 20 has polarised more in the community than a discussion on vaping etiquette ever will.

So the question remains, why is Totally Wicked challenging Art20 and putting their name on it?

Of course, by putting their name on the challenge it’s a publicity boon for them no doubt about that. It is also a tremendous risk. TW are self-financing their campaign, and as far as I know have not received, nor will they accept any monetary donations for this challenge.

If the challenge fails, and Article20 is enacted in its current form, TW will have lost a massive chunk of change and a huge proportion of their business. It could quite easily destroy the company, although I suspect that there is sufficient funds available for the challenge and to maintain business, at least for a while if the challenge fails.

You may remember that Dave Dorn went on a little trip to TW and interviewed Fraser Cropper. The video is below if you haven’t seen it, it is worth a watch.

All in all, TW are issuing the challenge to benefit all of us. Yes there is likely to be some pay off for TW at some point down the line should they be successful.

As it stands, they have over 10,000 signatures on their challenge so they must be doing something right, the concern here however is the challenge site has been up for a few months which does suggest that many can’t or won’t offer their support to TW. But the fact remains there are many within the community that believe that TW are the dark side. I have no plans to change those opinions. Lets look at a hypothetical scenario:

Article 20 is being challenged by ECITA (for example). ECITA are of course a trade organisation so it stands to reason that they would challenge Art20. Removing TW from the picture for a moment, would ECITA :

have divided the community in issuing the challenge as TW have?

have gained more support from the community (say 30K+ supporters) ?

It is an interesting question isn’t it? Of course, until very recently ECITA have only really had the larger businesses as members so you could turn that on its head and say that ECITA would only challenge to benefit those businesses.

The trouble is ECITA, for all the good work they do in the upper echelons of the industry, are not as public facing as TW are. Totally Wicked are shall we say, right in the thick of things. They deal with the consumer directly, unlike ECITA. TW know, more or less what the consumers use and what they want.

So, my answer to the “should TW have put their name on the challenge”….

Totally Wicked are probably not the company I would have chosen personally, but they are the only company that have stepped up to challenge Art20. Does that make them the good guys? Maybe slightly less dark side in some opinions?

I think we will have the answer to those questions when the challenge is completed either way. How they play after will, to my mind be the biggest tell. But to my mind, the fact that they have stepped up and are being relatively successful (so far) is a good thing, not just for TW, but for us mere mortals too.

I am not slamming TW here, with the divided opinions within the community I’m trying to stay smack dab in the middle. I do think it is a good thing that someone is challenging Art20, and despite the reputation of TW to some people, they are looking out for vapers as a whole, not just for themselves. I also feel that other companies within the UK and EU could have done something similar.

They didn’t, which does make Totally Wicked the only shot, if it fails which is always a possibility, albeit unlikely, all the lovely shiny mods we use, the variety of juices and tanks/drippers will disappear. All that will be left are the unusable cig-a-like devices produced by the tobacco industry.

I saw a tweet earlier, from none other than Lorien Jollye which sums it up:

“If it works for me, it can work for anyone”

“Just want them to be available for other smokers as they were for me”

Those two statements sum up my thoughts to, and if like me, you really care about vaping you would put your thoughts and opinions about Totally Wicked to one side and give them your support. If only so that vaping is still an option for the millions of smokers should they so choose.